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Pompey
Russian: Помпей (Pompey) Age: 18-19 Status: Leader of the Sixth As of Epilogue: dead Appearance: Tall, "fleshy", swarthy (but powders his face), with a shaved head (except for the small greased lick on top). Wears leather biker jackets. Usually adorns himself with a live bat (a new one every couple of months). Outside the House: He is a recent resident of the House; Tabaqui at least says that he has no idea where Pompey came from. In the House: Pompey is the Hound Leader, thus overseeing the most numerous pack. In Tabaqui's interpretation, the power of his position goes to Pompey's head, and he begins to plan the challenge to Blind for the title of the Master of the House. This challenge gradually takes shape as an open invitation to an actual knife duel between the two. After all efforts to defuse the situation and make Pompey back down fail, Blind, motivated both by his perceived mandate to avoid the split of the House into two warring factions (which has led to the graduation night massacre for the seniors) and by the impossibility of stepping down from his post (since Pompey apparently knows nothing of the true nature of the House), reluctantly accepts, and Pompey is killed with a knife throw to the neck before the audience of the four packs (minus Pheasants) assembled in the House's gym, in the late autumn of the last year. No one reveals the circumstances of his death (which Vulture dubs a "suicide") to the administration, until Black, on the Longest Night, sensing an opportunity to stage his own coup attempt, places a sheet of paper with the words "Blind snuffed Pompey. Everyone saw" under Ralph's door. In Pompey's absence Hounds remain leaderless until Blind sends Black to the Sixths as a Leader for the remaining half-year. Allusions: - The most famous Pompey is, of course, Gnaeus Pompey the Great, Roman general who ended up contending with Caesar, his former Triumvirate partner, for the leadership of the empire, leading to a civil war - in which he was defeated at the battle of Pharsalus and assassinated soon afterward. - The scene of the duel between Pompey and Blind is reminiscent of the scene in Kurosawa Akira's "Seven Samurai" (in turn borrowed from a story about a historical figure, the legendary 17th-century Japanese warrior Musashi Miyamoto), where a brash samurai engages the fencing master Kyūzō in a mock battle with bamboo sticks, claims that he won it, but when Kyūzō declines to concede proceeds to challenge him to a real swordfight - and promptly gets killed with a single stroke. Wise ronin Kanbei observes the proceedings and at one point remarks to young Katsushirō, whom he takes for disciple: "It's so obvious" - meaning that the outcome of the fight is completely clear to him in advance, while Katsushirō remains genuinely worried; compare with Sphinx's calm demeanor on the eve of the fight while explaining to nervous Smoker the history of the Law of Choice. In "The Magnificent Seven", 1960 Western remake of Kurosawa's film, Kyūzō stand-in Britt is a brilliant knife-thrower, and the pretend-then-real duel scene is recreated with him taking on a better-armed opponent, going with the knife against a gun.